The Vines by Shelley Nolden (ebook and pdf reader .TXT) 📕

lethargic movements, she knew they were as miserable as she was. To greet them, she raised her hand slightly. Since they couldn’t see her face behind the cloth that she wrapped around her head each morning to contain her germs, she didn’t bother to smile.

Some waved at her. No one would dare shake her hand, even in its glove. Likewise, none would ever attempt to befriend her. Even if someone tried, she’d have to reject the kindness. Four people in the past year and a half had fallen ill because of her germs. The first three had perished, and Elena, the girl bedridden now, might join them before nightfall.

Whenever the guilt seized her, squeezing her rib cage until she could barely breathe, Dr. Gettler reminded her it could have been so much worse. In hindsight, his decision to falsify her death and recast her as a new patient with incurable leprosy had been prescient. Not only did her hood signal to patients and staff alike to keep their distance, but it also—usually—served as a barrier for her germs while concealing her identity.

During his third examination of her, the doctor had presented this plan in a soft tone, compassion radiating from his blue eyes, and Cora had accepted it without question. He hadn’t mentioned that the disguise would enable them to avoid arousing suspicion from the staff if she were to stay for a prolonged period. But Otto must have been thinking it. Otherwise, he wouldn’t have instructed O’Toole to build a wooden partition at the end of the typhus ward to give her the comfort of private quarters. Nor would he have written to her mother, notifying her that a “troublesome chronic cough and rash” necessitated a delay in Cora’s return.

Every month since, Cora had posted a letter to her mamaí. Not once had Cora received a reply. A year ago, as part of a campaign to alter its reputation as a pesthouse—to curtail the poor from hiding their ill—Riverside had opened its doors to visitors. Watching other families reunite, with tears and squeals of joy: that’s when Cora missed her mother the most.

A hymn began, and many of the invalids joined in, their raspy voices collectively thick with foreign accents. Just the sight of their thin cotton hospital shifts made Cora sweat more profusely within the heavy wool. It had been an unusually hot summer and today was no less cruel. How she longed to rip away the shroud, run to the beach beyond the new seawall, and charge into the cool water, racing all the way home.

She’d never make it. Even though a classmate had taught her to swim in the Hudson River four summers ago, she wouldn’t stand a chance against the turbulence caused by the convergence of several rivers at Hell Gate, the nearby bend in the tidal strait.

“Maidin mhaith!” O’Toole boomed and dropped to the ground beside her.

Cora planted her hands into the grass. Although she knew it wasn’t possible, the ground always seemed to shake when he did that.

To allow the cleansing breeze from across the river to flow between them, she shifted three feet to her right. Having previously suffered from every malady treated at Riverside, he was immune to her pests. Still, she tightened the cloth across her face before returning his greeting, Irish Gaelic for “Good morning.”

Although his grandparents had emigrated from Ireland, he hadn’t known a lick of the language before he’d met Cora. According to him, during his grandfather’s search for a job after reaching the “Land of Opportunity,” he’d repeatedly been rebuffed by signs that stated, “No Irish Need Apply.” Hungry and homeless, Eamonn O’Toole, with a wife and four small children in tow, had stripped away his brogue and changed the family name to Ogilvy. “On my eighteenth birthday,” Richard O’Toole had told Cora, “I marched into City Hall and changed it straight back. Anyone ta turn me down for employment, because of me Irish blood, is a damned amandan.”

Fool. She’d taught him that word, too.

While listening to him describe his family’s struggles, Cora had found herself thinking of her mam, who’d resorted to a line of work in the Five Points District that required no formal application and that had produced both Cora and her sister. Dreaming of a better life for them, their mother had been adamant that they complete public school. And now Maeve was dead, and Cora’s seat had surely been filled a year ago.

“What a fine morning!” O’Toole said loudly, the only timbre his voice contained. “A touch hot, though.” He wiped the sweat from his broad, sunburned brow.

Through the sides of her hood, Cora could feel the stares of the other invalids.

“Shhh” she hissed, though she couldn’t fault him. Early on, she’d asked why he didn’t attend St. John-by-the-Sea with his wife, a nurse, and their three children, all of whom were within the chapel now.

“God and I had a little chat,” he’d responded. “The Good Lord’s okay with me doing His work instead of listening to His word.”

Considering no one on the island labored as hard as O’Toole, who assisted both with the patients and the expansion of the hospital, Cora didn’t doubt that God approved.

This morning, in addition to the sweat that stained his collared work shirt, he reeked of oil, dirt, and antiseptic. Yet she didn’t turn away; she knew she smelled no better.

“Elena. How is she?” Cora asked in a hushed tone.

O’Toole rubbed his temples, which shielded his hazel eyes, too small for his fleshy face. “On my way from the tuberculosis ward, I stopped to help with a tipped coal cart. I haven’t been ter the main hospital yet this mornin’.”

“What if she’s dead?” Cora shuddered.

O’Toole ducked his head so he could look straight into her eyes, beneath her hood. “None of this is your fault. You didn’t ask ta have those little buggers crawling inside ya.”

“Richard,” she said, using his Christian name for the first time, “that doesn’t mean I’m not responsible for them.